Read Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel for Free Online Page A

simultaneously planting the left hand firmly on the approaching person’s forearm. Done right, the maneuver would prevent the person from leaning in for a kiss. Clinton practiced it several times with his national security adviser, at one point raising his knee toward Lake’s groin to demonstrate his backup plan. If he could keep Arafat from kissing him onstage, Clinton thought, the old guerrilla leader would not try to kiss Rabin.
    Back at Andrews Air Force Base, television journalists had set up mobile units to broadcast Arafat’s arrival live on television. The United States had shunned Arafat since his rise to prominence in the 1960s. Now he grinned widely as he walked off the plane and onto the Andrews tarmac, America’s gateway for visiting dignitaries. Among the benefits Arafat had hoped to reap from the Oslo deal was access to the administration in Washington—and here it was. He shook hands with Edward Djerejian, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and then spotted Bandar in the reception line. “Andrews, Bandar. We’re at Andrews!” he spoke into his ear. The two men rode together to the hotel.
    Bandar talked Arafat out of a plan to hand Clinton his gun during the ceremony, a theatrical gesture meant to signify his turn away from the armed struggle. The symbolism, at least, seemed apt to Bandar, but the Secret Service would never let him close to the White House with a sidearm. (Clinton, on hearing the plan, quipped that ifArafat gave him a gun onstage, he would shoot him with it.) But he couldn’t talk him into a suit. When Arafat tried on one of the jackets, his advisers chuckled. They had never seen him in anything but military green. Arafat was still sore with them for forcing him to leave his wife, Suha, behind in Tunis. The tension between his aides and his wife had climbed steadily since their wedding three years earlier.
    Feeling stage-managed and a little humiliated, Arafat returned to his standard garb but left off the medals and insignias he often displayed on his chest. Without them, the outfit was technically just a safari suit. Then he put on his kaffiyeh and headed out.
    But Rabin knew a military uniform when he saw one. In his room at the Mayflower, he caught a glimpse of Arafat on television leaving his hotel for the White House and yelled for Haber. Rabin had freckles and fair skin—he was what Israelis called a gingi , a Hebrew variation on the British term for “redhead.” When his anger rose, as it did now, his face flushed brightly. Haber got Indyk on the phone and told him—to Indyk’s horror—that Rabin was sulking in his room and would not be coming. By now, hundreds of dignitaries had gathered on the South Lawn of the White House, including former presidents Bush and Carter and several former secretaries of state. To Indyk’s relief, the crisis lasted just a few minutes—Rabin quickly withdrew the threat. But the episode foreshadowed difficulties in the rapport between Rabin and Arafat. It would take time to build.
    With the two delegations now at the White House, the full significance of the event began to set in. A year earlier, Israel still had a law barring its citizens from just meeting with PLO members. A few weeks earlier, the Oslo process was undisclosed and uncertain. Now Rabin and Arafat stood on either side of Clinton in the Blue Room, an Israeli general and a Palestinian guerrilla leader about to take the stage together. Arafat reached across Clinton to shake Rabin’s hand, but the Israeli leader kept his arms crossed behind his back and motioned outside, where the crowd was waiting.
    Nearly three thousand people had gathered on the South Lawn, including ambassadors of Arab countries officially at war with Israel. Rabin’s son, Yuval, had driven five hours from Raleigh, North Carolina, and was seated many rows back, along with his sister, Dalia.He had not had a chance to talk to his father before the ceremony. Yairi, who had time for a